Monday, February 11, 2008

"The Humpy Show" Kicks-Off Tuesday Night

The pilot episode of The Humpy Show is airing on SPEED Tuesday night at 9PM Eastern Time for one hour. This one should be interesting.

Humpy Wheeler from the Lowe's Motor Speedway is one of those guys you can just sit and talk with for hours. His stories are interesting, hilarious and historical.

At this time in his life, it seems to be a very good idea to get Humpy on-the-air to talk with other personalities in the sport and also to throw-in his own brand of racing wisdom.

Wheeler has told me stories that I repeat to friends now some ten years later. From the old pick-up truck with the Alaska license plates to the decision to build the first condos at a racetrack, he is always an interesting character.

It should be worthwhile tuning-in or recording this program, as SPEED continues to try and originate more NASCAR-related programming for 2008. This one could be fun!

10 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Buddy Baker and Kurt Busch are the guests discussing NASCAR rivalries. Appropriate subject. Too bad it was taped a while in advance - Humpy is so smooth he could probably have convinced KBusch to talk about what happened in the hauler this weekend.

I saw some trailers of Kurt's interview. This could be good. They certainly were talking like a bunch of friends. Kurt was describing some conversation he had on the radio and he was,well, pretty frank about what was said. :)

That show reminded me of why I fell in love with NASCAR! I hope that this is going to be a weekly show. This is one that I will never miss. Even if it's a driver that I hate it will be worth sitting through. I couldn't stop laughing through most it. And to NASCAR, heed Humpy's words: "You don't want it to go over the edge, you don't want it to turn into a free for all, but you don't want to stifle all the emotion. That's what we're selling. People are buying tickets for drama, drama is rivalry, drama is wheel to wheel racing, and black marks on the side of the car and all that stuff. That's what it's all about. Without that you got nuthin'".

This is a great show for those with an interest in NASCAR history. It could be last season or the early days. This show presented some great insights into how it was.

For some, it's easy not to like Kurt Busch. I too used to refer to him as "Rubberhead", but over time I came to appreciate his skills and passion as a racer. I also appreciated that one morning before a race in Sonoma that only he and Mikey were out signing autographs. There's more to this talented driver than what we saw coming onto pit lane in Daytona last weekend. This show exposed some of that.

And what can be said about Buddy Baker. He has some of the best stories about the good old days and has a magical way of telling them. For those of us who miss him on Sirius' "The Driver's Seat", seeing him telling stories was like a drink of cool water.

Humpy also is a consummate story teller, and a consummate promoter. It's not surprising that this show was produced by a company bearing his name. Over the years, he's honed his ability to put on a great show for the fans.

This show reminds me of the short series that I think was on TNN almost a decade ago that featured Allison, Baker, Jarrett, the Moores and other drivers along with Eli Gold and other announcers of the day. This exposed some of the best stories of NASCAR's formative years and it was priceless.

This show is different and can develop a good blend of the then and the now. I actually saved this show on my TiVo and might actually save it off to DVD for posterity. It might also help to sustain me during the off-season at the end of this year.